Archive for July, 2005

New York Times is up in arms over female American soldiers getting down with prisoners to help the cause: There are countless reasons to be outraged about the abuses of detainees at American military prisons. But there is one abuse about which there can surely be no debate, even among the die-hard supporters of President [...]

I read in today’s Boston herald that a passenger and the driver got into a tussle on an MBTA bus. Somehow they managed to take it outside, literally, where several bystanders started pummeling the driver who was beaten senseless, from what I gather from the article. I wasn’t there so I don’t really know what [...]

Some kind of Muslim Grand Pooba interviewed on Al-Jazeera (as reported by MEMRI): Al-Siba’i: “I, myself… I condemn the occupation, which is the cause of all these tragedies. The occupation caused all these disasters. The country was safe and peaceful, until the Americans came, and we are expected to blame those who fight in defense [...]

I was wrong. The attacks in London were apparently carried out by British Muslims of pakistani origin. I’m mildy surprised, but certainly not shocked. You shouldn’t be either. The domestic European terrorist organizations of the 1970′s and 1980′s that were based on ideology were all crushed by intense counter-terrorism campaigns. The ethnic terrorist organizations, such [...]

There’s a startling article in the July 1 issue of Sampan, “New England’s only bi-lingual English-Chinese newspaper.” It describes how Asian Republicans of Massachusetts has endorsed self-described “bleeding-heart liberal” Korean Sam Yoon’s candidacy for Boston’s City Council. The group’s president Joe Wong doesn’t mince words in the article: We feel that regardless of whether he’s [...]

The Governor declared a heightened level of security on the T shortly after the terrorist attacks in London, but it was business as usual at the Arlington stop: After a morning of service on Wednesday, the escalator sporadically serving the inbound platform was once again kaput on Thursday morning, and remained so today. What is [...]

The Congressional Budget Office reports in its latest budget review that growing revenue has significantly decreased projected federal budget deficit. The bad news is that spending is also growing faster than projected: In the first three-quarters of fiscal year 2005, the federal government incurred a deficit of about $251 billion, CBO estimates, $76 billion smaller [...]

Talk about deteriorating capability. Our Muslim Arab enemy killed 3,000 people using 19 operatives in 2001, 191 people using seven (if I remember correctly) in 2004, and yesterday in London, some 40 people using another half dozen or so of Allah’s finest. That kind of decline in performance is what one expects from Arab economies, [...]

It took the MBTA (everybody, sing it with me: It’s fun to ride on the M-B-T-A!) a few weeks, but today the escalator at the Arlington T-stop actually worked. I wouldn’t bet the farm on it working tomorrow, but I don’t pass up celebrating the small victories in life.

I don’t have any cool pictures from today’s epic downpour, but I feel I must make some kind of note of this most ferocious precipitation. So, I’ll say this: It rained a lot today. Jokes about Duckboats and other water-enabled vehicles abounded. My banged up, undersized umbrella got a good workout. Let’s get back to [...]